Partners for Youth Empowerment

A few months ago I had the incredible opportunity to attend a conference on youth empowerment. It was about how to use creative arts to engage youth, and be a better facilitator. It was the most meaningful and transformative conference I have ever gone to. 

The premise was that any valuable work done with youth should have an element of empowerment in it, which can enable those you are working with to tap into their talents and skills. One medium of doing this is through creative arts, but there are many other ways of creating an empowering environment. However, what really made this conference so meaningful was that the facilitators believed the only way one can empower youth (or anyone really) is to be empowered themselves and go through a transformative experience. Mission accomplished. We spent a full week going through a variety of experiences and activities which served two purposes: to teach us how to facilitate better and create a transformative learning program for youth, and to allow each of us to feel able and ready to be involved in this work. Some of the activities I was already familiar with from previous work with youth and teaching, but a lot of it was very new to me. Essentially the facilitators were walking us through series of increasing risk-taking activities that asked us to push ourselves outside comfort zones we have created. I most definitely did that the entire week and many of the days were extremely emotional. I grew so much in that week of work and really processed a ton of information about myself and human beings. I was able to face some demons, unlock skills and potential I was unaware of, and truly see and get to know other people and relate to their experiences. As a bonus, I also learned a ton about designing programs and facilitating activities with youth that can really empower them and build capacity. 

What really changed for me that week was I truly found my direction, my calling if you will, in my field of work. I have always known that education is my passion, but I also could not help but feel something was missing, there was somewhere else I should be going. I found it. Whether it is teaching, working in schools in another capacity, or designing programs/curriculum, my focus is going to be on empowerment. I truly believe in this model of education and the changes it can make in young people's lives. Our society is not an empowering one and we have lost so many of those facets, like community, which could have provided that support. The path is now clear in front of me and I know what I am going to spend the rest of my life doing. The feeling of being empowered, believing in yourself and feeling capable of whatever you want, is comparable only to being in love. I am still not sure the exact capacity I will work through, but no matter what it is an element of PYE will be there. Go check out their website if you are also interested in this sort of work!